Being a quitter isn’t so bad

A quitter was someone who gave up, who walked away, who admitted defeat.

That wasn’t going to be me.

Then life happened.

It turned out, quitting was pretty easy — and something I did often. I quit jobs, I quit sports teams, I quit eating peas. Last year I even quit the Honolulu Marathon at around Mile 14 — just because my running partner was hurt. I could have kept going, proved to people I could finish the entire 26.2-mile course, but I didn’t. I quit, just like that.

I used to feel incredibly insecure about it, that maybe my first defense when faced with a difficult circumstance was to run away.

But then I found myself in a job that was turning into something I hadn’t signed up for, with a boss who was borderline abusive, working more hours than I was getting paid for. I stuck it out — for years, actually — hoping things would get better. I would have never left had it not been for a single incident that left me in the office of my boss’ boss, explaining why I hadn’t told him about my unhappiness for the past 18 months.

I stayed because that’s what you do, right? You don’t quit when things get tough.

He looked at me and said, “As your boss, I can tell you I’ll do whatever I can to make this job better for you. But as a friend, you should quit.”

He knew this was all spiraling downward — and fast — and there wasn’t much left for me to do but walk away. He was worried about my mental well-being, that I was wasting time in a job that wasn’t allowing me to reach my professional and personal goals. He didn’t think this was a good fit for me anymore.

So I had to quit.

Quitting is never easy for me, to be honest. I feel a huge amount of guilt and sadness when I walk away from something unfinished. But in a lot of cases, it’s your only option. And I had to decide whether my happiness — or, maybe sanity — was that important.

And it was.

There’s a difference between quitting and bailing. I would never ditch a project half-done or leave a friend stranded. Every time I’ve left a job, I’ve made sure the next person was fully trained and ready to go. I try — and keep trying — to make it work until I can’t do anything to save it. I don’t ditch, I quit — and that’s a significant distinction.

When I look around my life and take inventory of what’s important and what’s not, I start to feel like I’m going to be a quitter again, and I have to tell myself it’s OK.

I’m not really quitting. I’m just giving other things in my life a fair chance.

About Catherine E. Toth

Born and raised on O'ahu, Catherine E. Toth has been chronicling her adventures in her blog, The Daily Dish (www.thecatdish.com), for several. She worked as a newspaper reporter in Hawai'i for 10 years and continues to freelance — in between hitting the surf and eating everything in sight — for national and local print and online publications.